Tuesday, September 19th, 2006

Iraq Again in Iran
If you didn’t see this one coming, you're paying too much attention to your Gameboy. Iran's been enriching uranium, they say, for the purposes of making some nuclear powerplants. The war hawks want you to think they're also gearing up to make bombs, or WMDs, to use the modern vernacular. Is it true? We don't know, and that's the only truth we can work with: we don't know. And so if someone tells you we do know, he is lying. And we know why they lied about WMDs in Iraq: so we would go to war, and they could make money off it it (half a trillion so far). And now the House Intelligence Committee is saying they know the Iranians are trying to create weapons-grade uranium. And this is a lie. And the UN called them on it. But let's see who's wife get's outed at the CIA this time.

Democrats Getting Together While Republicans Fall Apart
An article in today's New York Times points out that democrats are taking a page from the Lieberman book of woes. In Washington, Maria Cantwell's pro-war vote is not being used against her as fervently in the primaries as it was against poor ol' Joe. The reasoning is that in Connecticut the Republican candidate doesn't stand a chance, so the Democratic primary is the real election. But in Washington, attacking Cantwell now gives fuel to the Republican candidate, Mike McGavick. And lo, we have a little something called "solidarity." And what with developments like Abramohoff scamster and Ohio congressdude Bob Ney having plead guilty to charges in connection with the Abramoff lobbyist scandal, it's more of the this idea that Dems are getting on one message, while the Republicans flounder to find a single front. Well, they HAVE found a front: the war, and that's a pun. But the joke will be on them this November. I hope.

Torture Justification
Heard something on a radio talk show that I figured I'd repeat here. All this talk about el presidente wanting congress to pass laws allowing him to torture these illegal prisoners. One person asked: why bother anymore? Pass the laws means our own soldiers suffer later, and for what good-- these people can't have useful knowledge anymore, since it's been so long, and surely the organizations with which they are allegedly aligned would have changed their plans, just in case. The answer: getting these people to confesss to anything means justifying their imprisonment, which justifies the republican position on the war. You want to call it scapegoatism, but it's more than that, it's means-justifying-the-end-ism.

Stupidity
It doesn't really fit the purview of AntiPundit, but what the heck, I'm short on material today. Recently read an article about this service that's in the works, where people can pay to go through a screening process, in order to obtain ID cars they give them access to the "fast lane" at airport security. Stupidest idea ever-- it will more or less shift the focus for terrorists form innovating ways to make bombs on plans, to innovative ways to fake the cards. But that's not what made my head shake. Some lady-- who's in charge of some advocacy group, so, one would think, an intellectual of some merit- took the fats lane because she was flying business class to Italy or someplace. As soon as he sits down in first class, they hand her a tube of toothpaste and some hand lotion. Because these things had been banned from carry-ons. Her comment? "I guess these things aren’t combustible when handed out by the airlines."

Newsflash, sister: they are not combustible at all. Is this what the present state of fear in our country has resulted in? Is this what the half-assed reporting and scare-tactics of the media has produced? Do people really think that the terrorists in Britain where going to blow-up the plane by setting toothpaste on fire? No, damn it, they where bringing in real explosives disguised in bottles to look like innocuous products.

"But she's just one moron," you say. No, because the writer of the article wrote it. The editor of the paper let it in. And they both expected it to be received as humorous by literally millions of readers. It's not freaking wonder that people like Rush Limbaugh are able to influence so many people. Everyone is stupid.